With Support From

Latest Episode

Elizabeth files suit against her friend, Zach. They spend a lot of time together watching TV at Zach’s apartment. But Elizabeth is unhappy with his living room seating arrangement. She would like him to add a chair, but he says the couch he has is enough! Who's right? Who's wrong? Show notes

Judge John Hodgman Episode 164: O Brother, Where Parked Thou?

Stephanie brings the case against her brother Mitch. They live at home with their parents and can't agree - who should get the coveted driveway spot and who should trudge through the mud to get to their car?

If you want to join our conversation about this episode, please click on the Forum link below!

Thanks to Mike Kennedy for naming this week's case! To suggest a title for a future episode, like us on Facebook at Judge John Hodgman. We regularly put a call for submissions.

"Attached are a couple of images of the area in question - it's a bit hard to see the shape of the driveway, and it probably looks like it is easy to park two cars side by side in there, but it's quite narrow in the middle, with a slight bend to the left."

You'd think someone from a city founded by Batman (John Batman) and a state that was almost called Batmania, would know more about comic books.
BTW, the coupe version of that ute was sold in the US as the Pontiac GTO.

Mitch complained that he had to traverse so much mud because the driver's door is on the right side of the car.

Is there some reason it is not possible to back in? then the driver's side door would be near the walk.

I'd love to get a satellite view of the area to see if anybody has figured this out. So far, I haven't had time to re-listen to the episode to learn the name of their neighborhood.

Rather than paving over the entire lawn, it would probably only take one or two feet ("dingo paws" in 'Stralia) to make the driveway wide enough. When I listened to the episode, I visualized paving the entire lawn.

In the frozen northeast of the USA, we have a two car garage, but there's crap on both sides. So my wife drives in forwards on the right side, and I back in on the left side. The result is that both driver-side doors are in the middle.

Oh my goodness! JUDGE! Did you not see the My Cousin Vinnie reference? As soon as he said "ute" my whole body tensed up in anticipation, because I was sure you would see it and swing at it, and it gave me pleasure to believe that I could predict your thoughts and actions. Sadly, no. On the other hand, it was really cool that you and Mitch basically reproduced the cultural reference completely organically, that was fun to hear in its own right.

I solved this problem by parking my car on the strip between the sidewalk and the road. My house is on the corner, and when I would park on the side where the main street is, it did get damaged, so I decided to park in front of my house. The road there is not wide enough for both myself and my neighbor across the street to park on it, and have people get through, so we park up on the grass between the sidewalk and the road, with one set of tires on the road, and one on the grass. If you aim well, you can step onto the sidewalk.

It appears they have the same strip of grass between the sidewalk and road.